Sams Evaluation

 Our video is of the song 'Evergreen' by the Backstreet Boys a modern and well known boy band. We feel that our video fits into the conventions of a professional music video with the shot types, costumes and locations. Before we looked at our own video we began planning and researching we did this by looking at other boy bands such as 'Take That' and 'Westlife' and then we also looked at solo artists such as 'Will Young' and 'Lady GaGa' and compared the similarities and differences between a group and a solo artist.
With our music video the main focus is the boy band its self rather than each individual. We used a range of close ups and mid shots when shooting solo sections of the music video and long and wide shots when shooting group sections.  The Essence of our song was happiness and bringing joy to the ears of the listener a 'feel good' song.

We had a brain storming session in which we thought about the types of the location we could film in that would capture what the video needed to give off, immediately the city of London cam into our minds as this was a prime location to shoot as it was busy and full of people and usually hot and sunny, with also the added bonus of stunning views and landmarks that the audience would relate to not just in the UK but all over the world.

This location was going to give us our energy and pace in our video, most boy band videos   have stunning scenery in the background which will reflect the boy band, Making them stand out more. While researching bands we discovered that the boy band is usually portrait as a influential god like figure. Even if the video was about being happy and on top of the world. We realized from our research that there is usually more than one location in a music video and with our meaning to be fast paced we thought we would contrast this with filming in the country side. So we went to the Magog hills/park where we got some stunning country landscape shots, With lots of natural views We also went to Wandlebury and got some shot of driving, this added motion to drive our piece forward. Our music video was very episodic in nature with each character having a different story.

As well as producing our video we had to have a way of making the artist and the video so we created a magazine advert and digi pack. The photo shoot for which too a long time with alot of trial and error. Eventually I came up of the idea of projecting the landscape onto a white projector screen and then placing two lights either side then squeezing the members into the shot so that the image sheds across their faces.

This photo shoot was all about angles as we did not want to make it obvious that this was a pull down projector screen. Each boyband member then had an individual shot taken to go inside the digi pack each one with a location that represented a mood or feeling.

Sam- City Landscape- Busy and frantic
Simon- Ice- Cool and Chilled
Lawrence- Desert- Warm and Embrasing
All- Northen Lights- Happy and Bright

Out magazine advert is simple yet effective a black background with a large pink text for the title and a large central image of our main album cover. We decided to have a small amount of writing as we know that when people buy magazines they do not tend to stop and read the advert, so we wanted to create something that was simple, big and bold with a color to draw out market in.

Our main digi Pack is not just a CD, with the boom in the downloads market an artist has to give that little bit extra, something you cant get with a online download. We needed to create something that will draw people to buy the hard copy, with this we set out on making a digi pack. I discovered one by a solo artist LADY GAGA, in which she has a CD jewl case and one CD is the album, the other a remix disc and the third is a DVD of her live concert, along with special limited edition images of her. So we decided to use this as our template and so we created our digi pack.

We used a CD jewl case, our front cover folds out as a booklet with limited eidtion images of the solo pictures that were taken.

DISC 1- Album
DISC 2- Remixes
DISC 3 - DVD with a commentary/interview with members of the group.

Along with this there are postcards with images of the boy band on, we feel that all 3 items complimented each other and follow on a ehtos of we are all one and a house style of our target audience which is teen/adult women.

Since our video went live we have had 217 views and counting, from our rough cut to our final product it has come along way. Our initial pitch was successive with barely any bad feedback. So we decided to go ahead with our idea and we went to look and shot footage for our music video and then came back edited the shots together along with our country shots we then showed this to our peers. The main feedback was that our video was very static and needed more movement, we took this and made it better by adding in a car along with a whole new sequence shot at Wandlebury. We then put the video live and over night we got hundreds of views and some brilliant feedback through comments on YouTube. We also showed this back to our peers this time with next to no bad feedback.

For our video we used alot of new media technologies, in our researching stages we used the internet and sites such as YouTube a network to share videos. This helped as to look at other boy bands and solo artists.
To help keep track of where we were with our video we blogged, using 'Blogger'. But to keep in contact privately and to arrange dates and times we used 'Groups' a section of the social network that is 'Facebook'
Here we could put up our ideas and inspirations for other to see outside of the class room and the blog. It was a fantastic tool to use during the process of making our video.

To shoot our video and also our stills for promotion we used a HD sony video camera  this gave us definition depth and also sharp clarity and fantastic quality, this was also the same for our stills images in which we used a HD panasonic stills professional standard camera.

For editing our footage we used industry standard software 'Final Cut Pro' This helped alot to give clean cuts and had fantastic features and some brilliant transitions.

For our promotional images we used photo shop this helped alot as our images required alot of editing to get them to that standard that you see today.

All of these new media helped us to create a product that is as close to the professional industry.

BELOW is a list of links you might like to look at relating to our video-

Our Final Music Video- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uromgjfH9xw

Our Interview/ Commentary Video- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcLkAYc-ukc

Magazine Advert- http://16longroadmusicvideo111.blogspot.com/2011/11/magazine-advert.html

Final Front Cover - http://16longroadmusicvideo111.blogspot.com/2011/11/front-cover.html

Final Back Cover-http://16longroadmusicvideo111.blogspot.com/2011/11/back-cover-of-our-cd-case.html

Individual Promo Images and Also inside booklet - http://16longroadmusicvideo111.blogspot.com/2011/11/inside-booklet.html



_______________________________________________________________________

Final Interview

Final Video

Front Cover

Our front cover for the album

The back cover of our CD case

Media Eval Questions

1) Our media products gained inspiration from other boyband videos such as "My Love" by Westlife. we used conventions from this like the typical boyband slow-motion walk. We also researched typical boyband clothing, such as smart-casual suits and multi-coloured shirts to contrast with each other. In our video, we were all used to sing the song, which builds on boyband conventions, as they are all in their videos, even if there is a story or narrative running alongside it. Using some of Goodwins points, we decided to keep the music video bright and colorful to link the upbeat and happy song. Since there was no clear meaning behind the lyrics we thought we should film in the countryside and some in London. This challenges conventions, as most boyband videos are filmed in one location and stick to it. Since there was no clear meaning behind the lyrics, it seemed pointless to have a full narrative, so instead we put in short driving periods as an on going theme throughout the video. This challenges both conventions and Goodwins rules, as the narrative normally follows the story or theme of the song

2) Our auxillary products products work well together with the video, as the style of them fit together well and look professional as an overall product. Adding the 3- disc set to our CD was a good idea, as it allowed us to have an audio disc, DVD and behind the scenes disc for people who want abit more than just the CD. The 3 piece booklet also adds a touch of class to the album. This creates a more band-like status of the group, as it shows we are all individuals, but form to become one band. It also pulls in the target audience of teenage females, as it shows the entire group on the front for all to see with "Evergreen" in large font to attract people to it. The backgrounds in the booklet show us in the multiple places, linking to the different locations  in the video, and emphasizing how the group is everywhere. Our magazine advert also pulls in the reader with its simplicity and digital download to get people interested and urging them to buy it.

3) Our pitch feedback had many positive responses. As we had decided to go to London to film it, most people approved of this idea. We also showed a video of places we would go, which went down well. This set us up for our filming session well, as we knew where to go. The feedback on our rough cut was also good. The main point we had to deal with was the lack of movement, as it seemed too stale and motionless. this spurred us to the idea of a car, which we then put in. We were also told our performance was impressive, but at times abit lacking. Due to this, we re-filmed multiple chorus's and some lines to make the video the best we could. Our final feedback was also good, as we were told it was a great improvement to the draft, as it added motion and more story to the product.

4) We used lots of different technology during our video. Alot of Mac software was used, mainly FinalCut and Blogger. Due to Final Cut, I was able to edit the video together easily and lip sync everything with ease. Using the website Blogger we were able to share our work and keep track of everything going on with our video, along with deadline dates. I also used Photoshop to create convincing CD materials, as well as the cover for the CD itself. Due to the options avaliable within these programs, we were able to make everything as well as we could. The HD filming and stills camera also allowed us to get high quality footage to make our products professional

Music Video Commentary

Last lesson we took a camera into a green room, and shot a 'Making Of' commentary in which each boy band member and the directors were sat down and asked a series of 4 questions.

We are now currently in the process of editing this video and combining the interview with clips of the music video.

We feel that the shoot was very successful considering that one of our boy band members was ill.

The Questions that the members were asked were as follows:

1. In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

2. How effective is the combination of your main product with your ancillary texts?

3. What you learnt from the feedback of your music video?

4. How did you use new media products in the production of your video?

CD 1

CD 1 - Audio CD

Inside booklet

The inside cover of our CD

Spine for our CD

Advert

As well as a newspaper advert I also decided to create a video ad which could be used on TV and online.

you can view this here

Magazine Advert

Digipack inside cover

Final Shoot

In our final shoot, we filmed the street of cambridge using a camera and driving round various locations, we are hoping that this sense of motion will add a  to drive our performance and force it to come alive, we also filmed in Wandalebury park in various parts of there grounds, as well as this we got my dad to be in our video as a showfer this worked really well and we have placed it into our ending of our video after the song has finished this adds a nice closure to the scene. this filming was very successful and has helped shape our video

BACK COVER OF DIGI PACK

I have now also completed the back cover to the digi pack to ever green, see here

DIGI PACK FRONT COVER

After looking over lots of Boyband and Solo artist album covers I took my inspiration and as a group we went on a photo shoot in the green/black room we used lighting to add an effect to our faces, I have no desgined the first front cover to our digi pack, which you can see below.

digi pack

We have discovered a digi pack, that we want to use to base our product on and that is the lady gaga born this way, collection set which has her album, DVD of her tour, and the remix disc along with pictures all in a CD style box set.

Car idea

Depending on Sam's Dad, we are going to film in his black bmw car for our moving shots

Bar Hill Nature Reserve

Ideas:
Shots of Sam, Simon and Lawrence on scooters in the countryside to go with our Magog shots
We decided to get more motion shots, such as point of view and ones on a skateboard or moving ones

Friday the 11th is our SHOOTING DAY!

Ideas for reshoot

Push scooters, as feedback we discovered we needed to get more mobile and decided to use scooters. This isn't our final decision, but we are considering using them

Shooting locations

Bar Hill nature reserve

Wandleberry Hill

Ideas for more shooting

Push along scooters, whilst singing chourus

• Country lane on a sunny day (Wandleberry)

Sams opening at the Wandleberry hut

Boyband dance

Black lines tutorial

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/643794/still_images_with_final_cut_pro/

1st Draft Feedback

Tom watched out 1st Draft of our fully edited music video, the main issue with the video is that is was too stale and needs more movement based shots, there is freedom and playfulness and the vocal is synced well with the lyrics, however at times it can come across static. Some shots are good and effective, but some are too much the same.

As a result of this feedback we are going to rework some scenes and add in more movement based shots, we will then find a period of time when we are all available and reshoot some sections of the music video.

Music Video inspiration

I was watching this last night, and thought the cinematic black lines on the top and bottom of the video would be a good idea, so tried it out on our footage

Rendering

Editing effects

Increasing RGB.

SHOOTING OUR MUSIC VIDEO

Yesterday we went to london and shot our footage for our 'Evergreen' music video.

We arrived at Cambridge Train station at 9 am and went to London Liverpool street to shoot our music video, the night before Sam prepared shooting packs which contained a highlighted tube map outlining our shooting locations and stations, also a set of lyric sheets which had be split up into sections of which member of the boy band sings which part.

locations include

Liverpool Street station
Covent Garden
Trafalgar Square
Leicester Sqaure
Buckingham Palace
Green Park
Royal House of Cavalry Court Yard
Westminster Bridge

Digi Pack inspiration

As part of our plan for our digi pack cover, I have researched various artists, some solo and some band album covers, to show the contrast between a solo artist and a band or group, the group images are our inspiration for our digi pack cover.

This album cover won album cover of the year, it is for a solo artist but I feel that its originality and creative mood will attract a consumer. 

This image is for a solo artist and the way in which they are marketed to consumer is very different to a group or band music artist, as you can see here the artist is the centre image and focus for the album cover and they have got a bold contrast of colors (in this case, silver/grey and black) with a simple yet attractive heading, the image of the artist combined with a motorcycle will draw attention to any consumer it is very artistic in feel and different, not mafactured unlike a lot of artist in the industry at the moment. 

In contrast a boy band cover has all members of the band as the focus of the the cover with a very basic and plain background, posing and a very bland choice for a cover, unlike a Take That album cover like this which has in my opinion more artistic value. 

Location shoot

 View from location of Addenbrookes Hospital

Digital Pack Planning

One thing we would like to include into our digital pack is a directors and cast and crew commentary, where the music video plays but a voice over of different members of the group is talking about each shot and discussing our ideas and intentions as well as how easy or hard it was to shoot.

This is an example for sort of what we are aiming for, a little more toned down but this is the effect we want.

THAT'S A WRAP

Today we finished our last set of filming, we got a bus to Babrham Road Park and Ride and then walked 45mins up hills and country side to get to our location, luckily we had the weather on our side and the quaility of the shots showed that all the walking had paid off.

We re shot parts of the chorus and the opening verse as well as shooting some transitions and non performance shots (i.e. rolling down hills).

The shoot was very successful and we now feel we're ready to move onto the editing and DIGI pack process.

Risk Assesment - St James park

Hazard - Foreign Chair salesmen

what could cause harm? chair salesman

who or what would be harmed? sam tucker and lawrence brenners ray bans

how much harm? broken ray bans

what is the likely hood of this happening? if sam doesn't pay the chair salesman for using the chair the likelihood will increase

Risk Assesment - St James park

Hazard - geese attack

what could cause harm? the wild birds

who or what would be harmed? the camera man (mikey)

how much harm? possible bites and scratches for mikey

what is the likely hood of this happening? depending on how much mikey provokes the birds

how will the risk be managed? keeping mikey away from the birds.

Risk Assesment - St James park

hazard - water (the river)

what cause harm? Drowning

who or what could be harmed? the entire group and the filming equipment.

how much harm? Fatalities

what is the likely hood of this happening? slim chance , depending on the time of year  

how would the risk be managed? avoiding the water

Inspiration

We have recently discovered a West-Life music video and we are using it for  a lot of our inspiration.

2ND half of filming

When we went to London we came back with about 50% of our footage, tomorrow we are off to Cambridge tomorrow to film the second half the benefits of this will give us contrast of locations so that the music video doesn't look too much like a tourist video.

We are going to be shooting at Magog Magog Hill Babram and to get there we are getting Park&Ride Bus, and then walking to the hills.

This is our route.

Fashion

Sam's costume No.1 -   Green plaid shirt with dark blue jeans.

Costume No.2 - Formal - White suit and black blazer and trousers.

Costume No.3 -  Quirky outfit - Rounded glasses,stripped blazer and jeans.

Promotional pictures

I've been looking into promotional pictures of boy bands to get an understanding so we have an advantage when creating our digi pak. file:///Users/mediastudies/Desktop/images.jpeg file:///Users/mediastudies/Desktop/images-1.jpeg 90% of promo pictures for boy bands are group pictures with the members wearing matching or very similar clothes. This helps create a sense of togeatherness.  

Lyric Breakdown

Below is a lyric list and we split the parts up into characters so we know who sings what paarts

Simon- AJ
Sam-Nick
Lawrence- Brian

Nick:]
I've been on the run
Slept under the sun
Feeding off the clouds and eating them like ice cream
I've been all around
Never left this town
Blisters on my eyelids like it's spring in Paris
I've seen everything, I've dreamt every dream
I am every human
Oh I'm not even finished

[All:]
Look how I go
Impeccable flow
Wind in my face it hardly ever rains
Always on top
I'm coming up
I'm everything and I am everything
I know it all don't know a thing
I am changing, still the same
I'm every color I'm every color
I am evergreen

[Nick:]
I've been on the side
Always stayed ahead
I'm so very fast give me a speeding ticket

[AJ/Brian:]
Me you cannot teach
I just wanna know
I'm the tallest man but I will never grow

[Howie:]
I've seen everything,

[Brian:]
I've dreamt every dream

[Nick:]
I am every human

[AJ:]
No I'm not even finished

[All:]
Look how I go
Impeccable flow
Wind in my face it hardly ever rains
Always on top (always on top)
I'm coming up
I'm everything and I am everything
I know it all don't know a thing
I am changing, still the same
I'm every color I'm every color
I am evergreen

[All:]
The truth is stranger than fiction
When you're a walking contradiction

[AJ:]
When you're evergreen
You're always looking in
You're the first one left
But you're back again
Don't be afraid to ask
But don't ask again
We'll forever last when you're evergreen

[Nick:]
Ohh no, no, no

[AJ:]
Yeah, yeah, oh, ohhh

[All/AJ/Nick:]
Look how I go
Impeccable flow
Wind in my face it hardly ever rains
Always on top
I'm coming up
I'm everything and I am everything (I am everything)
I know it all don't know a thing (don't now a thing)
I am changing, still the same (still the same)
I'm every color (I'm every color) I'm every color (I'm every color)
I'm every color (I'm every color) I'm every color (color)
I am evergreen

[NIck/AJ:]
Yeah, I'm evergreen

No, no, no, no

[AJ:]
Yeah, I'm evergreen

Ideas for tomorrow

Tomorrow we shall continue our filming process in our local city Cambridge. We will need to create a few group shots and a couple of duet parts that unfortunately we were unable to film in London. We will be using our lunch break and our Media lesson time to get the filming done, we are using Simon's camera as we used our alloted college camera time and our alternate camera films in 1080p.

Our "to do" list in our next filming session

Evergreen Music Video: Risk Assesment - Buckingham Palace

Hazard: People (Tourists)

What could cause harm? Tourists and hand held objects. (If they where to amass in one area with speed)

What is the likelihood of this happening?Unlikely

Who or what would be harmed? Our group and camera(considering we'll be filming up near the entrance)

how much harm? anything up to broke limbs or suffocation.

RISK ASSESSMENT - london liverpool street station

Risk - Train

trains, can cause harm if a member of the crew is hit by one, it can lead to a fatality. 

The likely hood of this happening is very low as we are not filming on the platform, however the risk is still there. 

members of the cast and crew would be the most likely victims when filming. 

The risk of falling onto the tracks with no train would most likely cause bruising and possibly broken bones but if the person falls onto the tracks as a train is approaching the risk could be fatal. 

To avoid, this from happening, we have decided not to film on the platform. but in the main section of the building. 

_________________________________________________________________________________

The next hazard, that we have got is in the main section of the building there may be spillage's, which could lead to broken bones to anyone that slips on the liquid , the likely hood of this happening is very low providing that there are yellow warning signs at the cast and crew take notice of these. if you were to slip the likely hood of it being a fatal incedent is very low 

Ever green music video:Risk Assessment - Buckingham Palace

Hazard: Bomb scare

What could cause harm? A Bomb

Who or what would be harmed? Any object/person in the immediate vicinity

How much harm? Anything ranging from bone fractures to fatalities.

What is the likelihood of this happening?  Depending on the level of uk terror threat : possible at the time.

How will the risk be managed? Deploying Police to the threatened area to discourage terrorists.

Ever green music video:Risk Assessment - Buckingham Palace

Hazard:Traffic Lights breaking

What could cause harm? Cars

What is the likelihood of this happening? Unlikely 

Who or what could be harmed? People/Cars 

How much harm? Depending on the speed limit,anything from broken bones to fatalities 

How will the risk be managed? To prevent cars from going a temporary barrier could be placed on the road.

Fashion

 Simons first shirt (plaid)
http://www.hollisterco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10201&storeId=13007&langId=-1&categoryId=12558&parentCategoryId=16398&topCategoryId=12551&productId=823925&seq=04

Simon's second outfit -improvised on set.

Simon's third outfit - white shirt,black jeans and black blaser.

Simon's fourth outfit - grey marvel t-shirt,possibly denim shorts

 

Costume

COSTUMES- 

- Checkered Shirts and jeans 

- Quirky Nutty Outfit of your choice something uterly nuts 

-White Shirt and Black Trouser and a Black jacket 

- Shorts and T,shirt (prefrabbly with some sunnys and a hat) 

- one outfit will be jeans etc BUT with facepaints (we will do this one last) 

Animatic video link

MAP OF FILMING

Below is a image of our tube map and our locations when filming

Old London Film Inspiration

Inspiration for costumes

The shirts in the video will be such as what we will be wearing, as each of us will have a different colour one on.

 Suits such as what are used in this video would be what we are aiming for, depending on what options we have. The colours are what we would really like to use.

n this video we are aiming for various different styles of fashion, in the video we want to break the conventions of a stereotypical boy-band video 2 of our quirky inspirations are tim burton and Lady GAGA,

above this is a video from the fashion dept from tim burtons alice in wonderland, we are looking closely at tim burtons costume for mad hatter.

costume idea

prop

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Just-For-Fun-Silver-Cane/dp/B0042AOZZK/ref=pd_cp_k_h_b_cs_3


this is a main prop in our video

Email to Harrods

I emailed Harrods with this

Dear Sir/Madam

we are a group of 4 media students from Long Road Sixth From College in Cambridge, as part of our media course we have to produce a music video for an artist as part of our planning and preparation for this we looked up loads of locations for various shots and Harrods seemed like the perfect place to film some shots these would be very quick and easy shots done with a single hand held cam corder, so there would be no large equipment trapsing through your building and hardly any disruption at all.

We would be ever so grateful if your would grant us permission in using your store (male clothing, Christmas land are the main areas) we would be in your store for only around 30mins just getting some simple shots that will really be effective within our music video, our filming dates are not yet set in stone but if you were to allows us to film in your beautiful store it would be on a Sunday and within the next 4 weeks.

As we are just a student project we cant offer any sort of payment, but we would be so grateful if you would grant us permission to film in your store, if you would like to have any more information or any questions do not hesitate to call me on my number below.

Thank you

Samuel Tucker

Spider diagram

Costumes

We based our appearance on ideas from the boy band genre, such as from bands like Take That, Westlife and The Wanted.
We decided we would need at least 4 costume changes throughout the whole video.

Suits, rented or used within the shop so we don't have to pay for them (work in progress)

Casual clothing (what we normally wear)



Shirts and jeans



T-shirts (high collared) and jeans

Music Video PITCH video

As a group we have organised a pitch for our 'Evergreen' music video, I have edited and put together a video which hopefully gives a feel for what we want to achieve in our music video if we got our song 'Evergreen' by backstreet boys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMkD14fgbNk

MOOD BOARD PLANNING

1image that represents song

Mood Board that represent the song 

other boybands